Actually, the setup guide for the iMac was even more ingenious. I have it hung on my wall, to remind me of the subtlty everybody should strive for in computer documentation.
It's an orange book, that folds out, with 5 pictures, each representing the the plugging in of a different cable. There are no words whatsoever.
Yes, but when the total cost of switching to an OSS solution (including updating all your current apps, importing and maybe transforming your current data, retraining your dba, redeploying the app to your clients) is greater than just shelling out for upgrades/new licenses on the old and presumably reliable for-pay database, smart money should stick with the old stuff.
And when your apps are costly custom work as it is, you've got to deal with the possibility of the cost being equal to the cost of a new application.
In the end, if you've got a single repository situation, you're not paying all that much per SQL license anyway. It's not quite the same as deploying software to every client machine. The savings aren't necessarily scalable. And certainly there's still some peace of mind in going with a big, reliable, and most importantly ACCOUNTABLE solution: if the server fails, you can always sue.
This isn't to bash OSS DBs. I love postgres and would love to dump all my garbage MS SQL stuff for it. But compared with other savings possibilities from OSS (like switching OSs to Linux, web servers to Apache, or email packages to qmail), there are lots of examples where switching to an OSS DB from an established DB system wouldn't be cost effective.
In short: if it ain't broke, don't break it just to prove a point.
They consider it non critical. It's a database of property tax exemptions. The tax database is a db2 monster.
And linux at this level of government is silly. No training budgets and most IT departments are one guy who's, like, totally good with computers, who comes in twice a week to uninstall KaZaa and VirtualGirl.
A lot of the viability of any product is based on who is selling it as part of an end to end solution. More and more developers are doing this with MySQL, but most of these developers are doing it for relatively low end applications. The "high class" consutlants and developers will be using DB2 and MS SQL forever, because a) they're told to do so by the people who can fire them b) they're used to it, and used to touting its glory c) they have a ton of tools for it.
Furthermore, there are some applications that just don't make any sense to switch. An example is government databases. I'm working right now with a state government database written on top of Sybase, and i don't think it's ever going to move off of Sybase unless the company tanks. There's actually three pages of (somewhat unfounded) explanations as to why it can't be ported to MS SQL. Mostly bullshit about WACOM SQL being incompatible with Transact (which begs the question, why not just use Transact in the first place when MS' and Sybase' version are about 80% similar). Can you imagine the developers, who have big enough egos to include three pages of MS SQL Server bashing in their docs, redoing their whole bloated app just so it can run on a free environment? Lord no! Not to mention the cost to taxpayers, who have already footed massive bonds to pay the usually high up front costs for software. Think they're going to pay a hundred k for some developers to rewrite everything in a free environment when they could just pay a few thousand for a Sybase license?
Do I think that truly open minded (some would say wise) development houses looking to cut costs on new systems are going to go MySQL? Absolutely. But there'll always be a place for the behemoth server app, not because it's better, but because it's PERCEIVED as better.
My point isn't that Word is bloated. Duh. It's designed to be the only word processor for an entire market where everybody has different needs. But that doesn't stop people from using it. And it especially doesn't stop college students, who use whatever they thing is the "best tool," from using it and using it wrong at every point.
Post sanctimonious and i'll call you on that. As a university help desk employee, it's your job to fix problems, not to tell people they did it wrong and be all smug about it. That's not "helping." Sure, you point out the fact that it was stupid to rely on a proportional font when trying to get your table of contents to line up properly, but that doesn't mean that you're suddenly better than the other person for doing this. These are people whose lives revolve around learning things you have no clue about, and you'd expect them to be kind when you display ignorance of organic chemistry or Old Low Norse.
The reason I have so much "pent up anger" is that I've had to deal with a lot of people who seem to feel that being clever with software makes them instantly better than the "common man" who only cares about getting stuff done. If software was in the majority intuitive and easy to use, they might have an argument. It isn't...and Word is the worst of the bunch. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop Joe Q. Doesntcareaboutcomputers from buying it.
Re:I thought we already had an XML standard for do
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1
Well, the key is you have to be ready to do it a different Right Way.
No, I can't submit my final paper as an HTML doc. But building it in HTML makes it much easier to send to my advisor or my editors. I do footnoting with hyperlinks, TOC with hyperlinks, and citations inline with hyperlinks to the citations page.
Really, if I felt like nerding it up a bit, I'd make a quick WIKI and include a commenting engine, automatic citing, autmatic TOC and a search engine. But this is linguistics. It's hard enough to get the prof to use a computer instead of post-it notes in my mailbox.
I'm doing it in HTML for ubiquity's sake, and because it means I can work anywhere. I do a lot of my best writing locked in a small room at the university with a VT terminal. No distractions. No need for concerning myself with layout. Content is king, nobody's impressed by 14 point Comic Sans anymore. When I was an undergrad in 2000, I used to print out my rhet essays on greenbar. I'd type them in Pico and then send them to the engineering printers, thus avoiding the thirty minute line for the laser printer. There's something so satisfying about a freshly daisywheeled essay.
I thought we already had an XML standard for docs?
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1
Personally, I only use a word processor to re-markup things I've written in HTML. That includes my dissertation. HTML isn't super printer friendly, but come on, we're all trying to go paperless anyway, right?
Uh, speaking as somebody who worked in computer labs for six years, I can tell you there is PLENTY of shit you can mess up in Word. And it is not easy to fix, especially if your only knowledge of the program is changing fonts, underlining stuff, and double spacing.
Try explaining to somebody why all of their delicately setup text drawings no longer line up because they switched to a printer with different font metrics. Or explaining to somebody who referenced an image rather than importing it how to get the image back in the paper now that they're no longer on the internet.
Try very simply explaining to somebody how they shouldn't use the ruler to change margins, even though that works, and they should instead use styles if they're going to be changing them every few lines, because when they add a new paragraph to a changed section it takes the wrong margin or bloats the current margin without telling them.
OR, simply, how by pressing the wrong key combination while reaching for a reference book they managed to put the whole program in outline mode. And suddenly everything's got bullets in front of it that you can't delete even when selecting them with the mouse.
Word is a complicated fucking program worthy of at least a semester's worth of study to understand everything it does and how to do things the way Word intends you to do them. Since most people get the three minutes of instruction you mentioned, and therefore they have to "guess" how to do it themselves, every college computer lab needs an expert around for the hard cases. What they don't need is sanctimonious guys like yourself (and several folks nobody liked at OUR computer lab) telling them they did it wrong when it's 40 pages of good work due in twenty minutes, and needs that works sited page.
Other than strong arming them into an alternative they might not want? Because the major ramification here, especially for a small college, is that they won't be able to support students' machines that are running Microsoft operating systems.
There's little difficulty in getting them to interoperate. But that the support resources -- help desks, IT staff, trainers -- would have to switch to linux/OSS. And that means that the necessary knowledge base isn't there to help people out. If a student is using MS Word on his laptop, and doesn't know how to do something, you'd have to tell him "we don't support Windows because it's too costly." A very patriotic phrase. But it doesn't help the student. Which means it doesn't help the school.
I'm not saying "don't use linux in schools." I'm saying don't put all your eggs in ANY basket. The college I went to had about 600 Windows machines, 200 Macintoshes, 100 Sun stations and about an equal number of RedHat machines. A lot of savvy students used the Sun and RedHat machines, and I don't mean just engineers. My wife, who wouldn't know open source from cold sores, used to use the $9000 Ultras to check her email, because they had these huge trinitron monitors and didn't have lines around them like the Windows machines.
The hodge podge of machines meant that we each had our own preferences and our own specialties. I think that's the best situation for a school; a technical equivalent to a "liberal arts" education.
Bah. Slashdot's supposed to put news in a blender and serve it up with a tiny straw umbrella. I shouldn't have to go googling every time somebody answers questions. Tell me why I should care, man!
All it would have taken is a simple "Larry Niven, inventor of the Web Ring."
I personally think Larry Niven *DOES* need an introduction, since I have no idea who he is. Being that I don't read nearly enough sci-fi literature (instead wasting my time with the subversive literature assigned to me by this damn hippy graduate program), I would have appreciated a quick run down of what he's written and why he's important.
But of course, since everybody over there knows who he is, I guess I'm just an ignorant shithead.
Listen. I paid $19,000 for a car. When I bought it, it came with four tires. Now, if i wanted, I could take off those tires and drive on the rims. You don't NEED tires to use a car. I could put on my own tires.
They aren't allowed to sell me a car with no tires. It would invalidate my warranty...you know, the thing where an insurance company vouches that this car isn't going to break within 32000 miles, or they'll cover the cost of repairs.
And you know what? The tires they put on were really shitty, cheap Eagle MVP4s that, to be honest, I didn't keep for more than a few months before swapping them out for some really sticky Dunlop V rated all-weathers.
But I still don't refer to this shit as the "Tire Tax."
I hate this term. Goddamn do I hate this term. I paid $200 retail for my copy of windows 2000 and I have not had it crash on me or throttle my data with a stick. All I've done to it is install patches. In the same time, my friend's dumped about 500 hours into his linux box, with an additional 1-10 hours every time he wants to install something new, checking contingencies, updating each library one at a time, and all from a prompt.
Look, I'm a developer. I've written software for everything from a pocket pc to an as/400 adn that's included some work in linux. It's a nice unix. But it doesn't bridge the essential gap into the home market: it doesn't let me do what I want to do (like, say, play GTA) without forcing me to learn a whole bunch of things I shouldn't need to learn. A home user shouldn't have to learn how to "compile" everything. My toaster doesn't expect me to heat the coils myself!
So I paid $200 for remarkably less hassle. I wish all taxes were so painless.
I do think it sucks that you have to pay for windows even if you're not going to use it. But look at it this way: you probably spent less than I did at CompUSA. And everybody loves a bargain.
It is very insulting that you think i'm Taco. For one thing, i'm an excellent speller. For another, I proposed to my wife the old fashioned way: one one knee at a St. Paul ribfest.
She needed to clean the grease off her ring finger with a handi-wipe.
I don't care about dupes and I don't care about typos. I've seen much worse than this on so-called professional news sites...in fact, I'd have to say that when compared to our local fox affilitate, Slashdot looks like the goddamn BBC.
I don't visit slashdot for the regurgitated, puree'd content. I visit slashdot for the clout. I visit for the semi-high profile interviews and the "insider" info.
And most importantly, I visit for the posts. If slashdot were just Drudge for technolosers, I wouldn't come back. But we have millions of intelligent people with degrees and experience chomping at the bit to respond to everything that gets posted. At the same time, we have a bunch of assholes waiting to post the funniest eye-opening responses they can. And we've trolls willing to play devil's advocate and to hell with karma, they're going to counterargue just to get us talking.
Slashdot is like a giant block party for subversive loner technology geniuses. It's hip, it's grooving, and if they want $15, they'll get it from me.
This BS about dupe checking, typos? Come on. It's not that important, and it adds to the "news of the second" quality that makes/. so appealing.
I for one LOVE splattered pancakes. They cook up so much crisper on the lower edge. In fact, I've been flipping early for years just to get this effect.
Then move to a small company. Not a start up, but a niche house. That's what I did. I get my specs pencilled on a sheet of paper, all the passwords I need, software and hardware aquisitions go through the owner and he doesn't take too much convincing if it's an actual work request.
As opposed to the last place I worked, where I had to bring in my own laptop whenever I needed to build icons because they wouldn't give photoshop to a developer (nor would they let the designer "work for me"). Right after I left they siezed the MSDN cds during a self audit. There were only 5 developers on Windows, ain't no way we were over the license limit.
They paid a guy to deny these requests. Last year he did not like being reminded that his job cost more than all of the requests combined and then multiplied by 5. He reminded us that if it weren't for him, those IT ne'erdowells would bakrupt us replacing all the broken servers and buying a Maxtor hard drive to replace the SCSI-2 raid that always went down.
I learned a long time ago in eco 101 that the reason Japanese companies often did so well during recessions is that when times got tough, they sunk more money into R&D and borrowed from the bank when they needed to. They would take a loss, knowing that it would be more than compensated for in the future.
It seems that American companies are trashing their R&D divsions and trying to cover up for it by making themselves "more efficient." With "efficiency" meaning layoffs, cutbacks and product reductions.
"Times are tough" doesn't seem like much of an argument for allowing a company to atrophy. But it's the argument all these C*Os are making. Why are we still paying these idiots to ignore broad economic trends and basic numbers? Is it because they look sharp in those $10,000 designer suits?
People don't put "legitimate backups to preserve the original media" in stacks next to their stereos. At least nobody I know does. I do know people who keep hundreds of stolen cds, meticulous labelled, next to a $500+ system. If that wasn't enough to enrage me, they are usually urging me to look at their collection.
"Looks pretty stolen."
Incidentally, I store copies of everything but I still use the original. Because I am an idiot and because I don't like the copies as much. I just think that I have to buy yet another copy of "Nevermind" I will probably start to take myself a bit too seriously.
Whoa, I'm the one who believes in supporting artists. Sorry if that makes me an asshole, but I have friends trying to make money by playing and selling music. And I'm not going let people get a free ride on the respect sale just because they can't be bothered to pay for things they like.
Download all you like, but it doesn't make you a hero. And I'm sure as shit not going to treat you like a "discerning fan" if the extent of your passion is whatever ^_^WZRFan879 had on her Kazaa share.
Think about it. Even if a $16 CD has 16 tracks on it, that doesn't mean each song is worth $.99. When you buy a CD, you're buying an "archival quality" medium with accompanying documentation and other tangibles such as disc art, case layout and the ubiquity of being able to play anywhere.
Plus you're buying intangibles, such as the pride of ownership. Yeah, I said pride. Owning a CD means you're more of a fan than somebody who has an mp3, even if they paid for it. CD collections are important things that impact a person's perceived personality and lifestyle. First thing I do when I visit a person's place for the first time is check out their CD collection. And yes, having a collection of all burns does negatively impact my perception of them.
This isn't to say I think it's necessarily a bad idea. I am a subscriber and an avid downloader from eMusic, and I don't feel their price is too expensive if you like what thy offer. My biggest complaints with the emusic model are the 128 kbit mp3s and the lack of major label catalogues, though they have a lot of great second tiers. If Apple does this right, they'll adopt a similar model, or at the very least offer volume discounts.
I don't think I'd ever buy a _single_ song on mp3, mostly because I feel a lot of work and effort goes into making an album into an artform that transcends simply slapping a bunch of tracks on a disc. I'd DOWNLOAD a single song, if it wer popular, to see if I'd like the album, but after I've already got it I'm certainly not going to pay for it. Catch-22.
Now maybe if they combined it with an "uncapturable" radio service, with the option to "purchase this song," they'd have a winner. Apple realizes the important of second string artists (as evidenced by the mp3s you get "gratis" on a new mac...fantastic stuff, without a Nelly or Britney track in site).
So, GSM phone. That means it only works with "T-Mobile" in the states, right? The company with decent calling plans, but the shittiest service, worst calling areas, no roaming (that's what "no roaming fees!" means...you can't roam at all with an all-digital phone!) worst building penetration and no plans to improve any of these? The one that paid several million dollars for their spokesman, and it was Jamie Lee Curtis? No thanks, man. I'll stick with my POS $30 Kyocera and Verizon, where I spend a lot extra to get the basic level of service I should get with everybody -- service that works indoors, service that works in the mountains as well as in the city, service that works in Canada and Mexico and the peace of mind to say "no, go ahead and call me, my phone will be on, I get service everywhere?"
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the setup guide for the iMac was even more ingenious. I have it hung on my wall, to remind me of the subtlty everybody should strive for in computer documentation.
It's an orange book, that folds out, with 5 pictures, each representing the the plugging in of a different cable. There are no words whatsoever.
Yes, but when the total cost of switching to an OSS solution (including updating all your current apps, importing and maybe transforming your current data, retraining your dba, redeploying the app to your clients) is greater than just shelling out for upgrades/new licenses on the old and presumably reliable for-pay database, smart money should stick with the old stuff.
And when your apps are costly custom work as it is, you've got to deal with the possibility of the cost being equal to the cost of a new application.
In the end, if you've got a single repository situation, you're not paying all that much per SQL license anyway. It's not quite the same as deploying software to every client machine. The savings aren't necessarily scalable. And certainly there's still some peace of mind in going with a big, reliable, and most importantly ACCOUNTABLE solution: if the server fails, you can always sue.
This isn't to bash OSS DBs. I love postgres and would love to dump all my garbage MS SQL stuff for it. But compared with other savings possibilities from OSS (like switching OSs to Linux, web servers to Apache, or email packages to qmail), there are lots of examples where switching to an OSS DB from an established DB system wouldn't be cost effective.
In short: if it ain't broke, don't break it just to prove a point.
They consider it non critical. It's a database of property tax exemptions. The tax database is a db2 monster.
And linux at this level of government is silly. No training budgets and most IT departments are one guy who's, like, totally good with computers, who comes in twice a week to uninstall KaZaa and VirtualGirl.
A lot of the viability of any product is based on who is selling it as part of an end to end solution. More and more developers are doing this with MySQL, but most of these developers are doing it for relatively low end applications. The "high class" consutlants and developers will be using DB2 and MS SQL forever, because a) they're told to do so by the people who can fire them b) they're used to it, and used to touting its glory c) they have a ton of tools for it.
Furthermore, there are some applications that just don't make any sense to switch. An example is government databases. I'm working right now with a state government database written on top of Sybase, and i don't think it's ever going to move off of Sybase unless the company tanks. There's actually three pages of (somewhat unfounded) explanations as to why it can't be ported to MS SQL. Mostly bullshit about WACOM SQL being incompatible with Transact (which begs the question, why not just use Transact in the first place when MS' and Sybase' version are about 80% similar). Can you imagine the developers, who have big enough egos to include three pages of MS SQL Server bashing in their docs, redoing their whole bloated app just so it can run on a free environment? Lord no! Not to mention the cost to taxpayers, who have already footed massive bonds to pay the usually high up front costs for software. Think they're going to pay a hundred k for some developers to rewrite everything in a free environment when they could just pay a few thousand for a Sybase license?
Do I think that truly open minded (some would say wise) development houses looking to cut costs on new systems are going to go MySQL? Absolutely. But there'll always be a place for the behemoth server app, not because it's better, but because it's PERCEIVED as better.
My point isn't that Word is bloated. Duh. It's designed to be the only word processor for an entire market where everybody has different needs. But that doesn't stop people from using it. And it especially doesn't stop college students, who use whatever they thing is the "best tool," from using it and using it wrong at every point.
Post sanctimonious and i'll call you on that. As a university help desk employee, it's your job to fix problems, not to tell people they did it wrong and be all smug about it. That's not "helping." Sure, you point out the fact that it was stupid to rely on a proportional font when trying to get your table of contents to line up properly, but that doesn't mean that you're suddenly better than the other person for doing this. These are people whose lives revolve around learning things you have no clue about, and you'd expect them to be kind when you display ignorance of organic chemistry or Old Low Norse.
The reason I have so much "pent up anger" is that I've had to deal with a lot of people who seem to feel that being clever with software makes them instantly better than the "common man" who only cares about getting stuff done. If software was in the majority intuitive and easy to use, they might have an argument. It isn't...and Word is the worst of the bunch. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop Joe Q. Doesntcareaboutcomputers from buying it.
Well, the key is you have to be ready to do it a different Right Way.
No, I can't submit my final paper as an HTML doc. But building it in HTML makes it much easier to send to my advisor or my editors. I do footnoting with hyperlinks, TOC with hyperlinks, and citations inline with hyperlinks to the citations page.
Really, if I felt like nerding it up a bit, I'd make a quick WIKI and include a commenting engine, automatic citing, autmatic TOC and a search engine. But this is linguistics. It's hard enough to get the prof to use a computer instead of post-it notes in my mailbox.
I'm doing it in HTML for ubiquity's sake, and because it means I can work anywhere. I do a lot of my best writing locked in a small room at the university with a VT terminal. No distractions. No need for concerning myself with layout. Content is king, nobody's impressed by 14 point Comic Sans anymore. When I was an undergrad in 2000, I used to print out my rhet essays on greenbar. I'd type them in Pico and then send them to the engineering printers, thus avoiding the thirty minute line for the laser printer. There's something so satisfying about a freshly daisywheeled essay.
Or isn't this good enough?
Personally, I only use a word processor to re-markup things I've written in HTML. That includes my dissertation. HTML isn't super printer friendly, but come on, we're all trying to go paperless anyway, right?
Uh, speaking as somebody who worked in computer labs for six years, I can tell you there is PLENTY of shit you can mess up in Word. And it is not easy to fix, especially if your only knowledge of the program is changing fonts, underlining stuff, and double spacing.
Try explaining to somebody why all of their delicately setup text drawings no longer line up because they switched to a printer with different font metrics. Or explaining to somebody who referenced an image rather than importing it how to get the image back in the paper now that they're no longer on the internet.
Try very simply explaining to somebody how they shouldn't use the ruler to change margins, even though that works, and they should instead use styles if they're going to be changing them every few lines, because when they add a new paragraph to a changed section it takes the wrong margin or bloats the current margin without telling them.
OR, simply, how by pressing the wrong key combination while reaching for a reference book they managed to put the whole program in outline mode. And suddenly everything's got bullets in front of it that you can't delete even when selecting them with the mouse.
Word is a complicated fucking program worthy of at least a semester's worth of study to understand everything it does and how to do things the way Word intends you to do them. Since most people get the three minutes of instruction you mentioned, and therefore they have to "guess" how to do it themselves, every college computer lab needs an expert around for the hard cases. What they don't need is sanctimonious guys like yourself (and several folks nobody liked at OUR computer lab) telling them they did it wrong when it's 40 pages of good work due in twenty minutes, and needs that works sited page.
Other than strong arming them into an alternative they might not want? Because the major ramification here, especially for a small college, is that they won't be able to support students' machines that are running Microsoft operating systems.
There's little difficulty in getting them to interoperate. But that the support resources -- help desks, IT staff, trainers -- would have to switch to linux/OSS. And that means that the necessary knowledge base isn't there to help people out. If a student is using MS Word on his laptop, and doesn't know how to do something, you'd have to tell him "we don't support Windows because it's too costly." A very patriotic phrase. But it doesn't help the student. Which means it doesn't help the school.
I'm not saying "don't use linux in schools." I'm saying don't put all your eggs in ANY basket. The college I went to had about 600 Windows machines, 200 Macintoshes, 100 Sun stations and about an equal number of RedHat machines. A lot of savvy students used the Sun and RedHat machines, and I don't mean just engineers. My wife, who wouldn't know open source from cold sores, used to use the $9000 Ultras to check her email, because they had these huge trinitron monitors and didn't have lines around them like the Windows machines.
The hodge podge of machines meant that we each had our own preferences and our own specialties. I think that's the best situation for a school; a technical equivalent to a "liberal arts" education.
Bah. Slashdot's supposed to put news in a blender and serve it up with a tiny straw umbrella. I shouldn't have to go googling every time somebody answers questions. Tell me why I should care, man!
All it would have taken is a simple "Larry Niven, inventor of the Web Ring."
(That's a joke AND a troll)
I personally think Larry Niven *DOES* need an introduction, since I have no idea who he is. Being that I don't read nearly enough sci-fi literature (instead wasting my time with the subversive literature assigned to me by this damn hippy graduate program), I would have appreciated a quick run down of what he's written and why he's important.
But of course, since everybody over there knows who he is, I guess I'm just an ignorant shithead.
Listen. I paid $19,000 for a car. When I bought it, it came with four tires. Now, if i wanted, I could take off those tires and drive on the rims. You don't NEED tires to use a car. I could put on my own tires.
They aren't allowed to sell me a car with no tires. It would invalidate my warranty...you know, the thing where an insurance company vouches that this car isn't going to break within 32000 miles, or they'll cover the cost of repairs.
And you know what? The tires they put on were really shitty, cheap Eagle MVP4s that, to be honest, I didn't keep for more than a few months before swapping them out for some really sticky Dunlop V rated all-weathers.
But I still don't refer to this shit as the "Tire Tax."
I hate this term. Goddamn do I hate this term. I paid $200 retail for my copy of windows 2000 and I have not had it crash on me or throttle my data with a stick. All I've done to it is install patches. In the same time, my friend's dumped about 500 hours into his linux box, with an additional 1-10 hours every time he wants to install something new, checking contingencies, updating each library one at a time, and all from a prompt.
Look, I'm a developer. I've written software for everything from a pocket pc to an as/400 adn that's included some work in linux. It's a nice unix. But it doesn't bridge the essential gap into the home market: it doesn't let me do what I want to do (like, say, play GTA) without forcing me to learn a whole bunch of things I shouldn't need to learn. A home user shouldn't have to learn how to "compile" everything. My toaster doesn't expect me to heat the coils myself!
So I paid $200 for remarkably less hassle. I wish all taxes were so painless.
I do think it sucks that you have to pay for windows even if you're not going to use it. But look at it this way: you probably spent less than I did at CompUSA. And everybody loves a bargain.
Still a great article the second time around.
I only paid $10 for it. I'm surprised it works at all.
It is very insulting that you think i'm Taco. For one thing, i'm an excellent speller. For another, I proposed to my wife the old fashioned way: one one knee at a St. Paul ribfest.
She needed to clean the grease off her ring finger with a handi-wipe.
Allow me to rebutt this.
/. so appealing.
I don't care about dupes and I don't care about typos. I've seen much worse than this on so-called professional news sites...in fact, I'd have to say that when compared to our local fox affilitate, Slashdot looks like the goddamn BBC.
I don't visit slashdot for the regurgitated, puree'd content. I visit slashdot for the clout. I visit for the semi-high profile interviews and the "insider" info.
And most importantly, I visit for the posts. If slashdot were just Drudge for technolosers, I wouldn't come back. But we have millions of intelligent people with degrees and experience chomping at the bit to respond to everything that gets posted. At the same time, we have a bunch of assholes waiting to post the funniest eye-opening responses they can. And we've trolls willing to play devil's advocate and to hell with karma, they're going to counterargue just to get us talking.
Slashdot is like a giant block party for subversive loner technology geniuses. It's hip, it's grooving, and if they want $15, they'll get it from me.
This BS about dupe checking, typos? Come on. It's not that important, and it adds to the "news of the second" quality that makes
I dunno...does The Gimp have Comic Sans, Lens Flares and Clone Stamp?
I for one LOVE splattered pancakes. They cook up so much crisper on the lower edge. In fact, I've been flipping early for years just to get this effect.
Then move to a small company. Not a start up, but a niche house. That's what I did. I get my specs pencilled on a sheet of paper, all the passwords I need, software and hardware aquisitions go through the owner and he doesn't take too much convincing if it's an actual work request.
As opposed to the last place I worked, where I had to bring in my own laptop whenever I needed to build icons because they wouldn't give photoshop to a developer (nor would they let the designer "work for me"). Right after I left they siezed the MSDN cds during a self audit. There were only 5 developers on Windows, ain't no way we were over the license limit.
They paid a guy to deny these requests. Last year he did not like being reminded that his job cost more than all of the requests combined and then multiplied by 5. He reminded us that if it weren't for him, those IT ne'erdowells would bakrupt us replacing all the broken servers and buying a Maxtor hard drive to replace the SCSI-2 raid that always went down.
And this was a relatively efficient company!
I learned a long time ago in eco 101 that the reason Japanese companies often did so well during recessions is that when times got tough, they sunk more money into R&D and borrowed from the bank when they needed to. They would take a loss, knowing that it would be more than compensated for in the future.
It seems that American companies are trashing their R&D divsions and trying to cover up for it by making themselves "more efficient." With "efficiency" meaning layoffs, cutbacks and product reductions.
"Times are tough" doesn't seem like much of an argument for allowing a company to atrophy. But it's the argument all these C*Os are making. Why are we still paying these idiots to ignore broad economic trends and basic numbers? Is it because they look sharp in those $10,000 designer suits?
People don't put "legitimate backups to preserve the original media" in stacks next to their stereos. At least nobody I know does. I do know people who keep hundreds of stolen cds, meticulous labelled, next to a $500+ system. If that wasn't enough to enrage me, they are usually urging me to look at their collection.
"Looks pretty stolen."
Incidentally, I store copies of everything but I still use the original. Because I am an idiot and because I don't like the copies as much. I just think that I have to buy yet another copy of "Nevermind" I will probably start to take myself a bit too seriously.
Whoa, I'm the one who believes in supporting artists. Sorry if that makes me an asshole, but I have friends trying to make money by playing and selling music. And I'm not going let people get a free ride on the respect sale just because they can't be bothered to pay for things they like.
Download all you like, but it doesn't make you a hero. And I'm sure as shit not going to treat you like a "discerning fan" if the extent of your passion is whatever ^_^WZRFan879 had on her Kazaa share.
Think about it. Even if a $16 CD has 16 tracks on it, that doesn't mean each song is worth $.99. When you buy a CD, you're buying an "archival quality" medium with accompanying documentation and other tangibles such as disc art, case layout and the ubiquity of being able to play anywhere.
Plus you're buying intangibles, such as the pride of ownership. Yeah, I said pride. Owning a CD means you're more of a fan than somebody who has an mp3, even if they paid for it. CD collections are important things that impact a person's perceived personality and lifestyle. First thing I do when I visit a person's place for the first time is check out their CD collection. And yes, having a collection of all burns does negatively impact my perception of them.
This isn't to say I think it's necessarily a bad idea. I am a subscriber and an avid downloader from eMusic, and I don't feel their price is too expensive if you like what thy offer. My biggest complaints with the emusic model are the 128 kbit mp3s and the lack of major label catalogues, though they have a lot of great second tiers. If Apple does this right, they'll adopt a similar model, or at the very least offer volume discounts.
I don't think I'd ever buy a _single_ song on mp3, mostly because I feel a lot of work and effort goes into making an album into an artform that transcends simply slapping a bunch of tracks on a disc. I'd DOWNLOAD a single song, if it wer popular, to see if I'd like the album, but after I've already got it I'm certainly not going to pay for it. Catch-22.
Now maybe if they combined it with an "uncapturable" radio service, with the option to "purchase this song," they'd have a winner. Apple realizes the important of second string artists (as evidenced by the mp3s you get "gratis" on a new mac...fantastic stuff, without a Nelly or Britney track in site).
So, GSM phone. That means it only works with "T-Mobile" in the states, right? The company with decent calling plans, but the shittiest service, worst calling areas, no roaming (that's what "no roaming fees!" means...you can't roam at all with an all-digital phone!) worst building penetration and no plans to improve any of these? The one that paid several million dollars for their spokesman, and it was Jamie Lee Curtis? No thanks, man. I'll stick with my POS $30 Kyocera and Verizon, where I spend a lot extra to get the basic level of service I should get with everybody -- service that works indoors, service that works in the mountains as well as in the city, service that works in Canada and Mexico and the peace of mind to say "no, go ahead and call me, my phone will be on, I get service everywhere?"